Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory: Language, Imitation, Art, and Verisimilitude in the Last Six Novels by Earl E. Fitz (review)

Several literary critics and readers—both in Brazil and elsewhere—have lamented Brazilian writer Machado de Assis's limited presence in world literature. Susan Sontag, for instance, in a widely known and debated statement, deems Machado "the greatest author ever produced in Latin America" and goes on to regret the fact that he is largely ignored beyond the Lusophone world (102).¹ The marginality of the Portuguese language, the peripheral position of Brazilian literature, and the scarcity of translations may have all been part of the problem. In recent years, however, new publications, mainly in English, are gradually offering a wider window into Machado's oeuvre. It is only too predictable that, as Machado's works progressively reach beyond national borders and gain the attention of a larger number of literary scholars outside Brazil, competing critical studies would appear. At least since the 1970s, literary studies in Brazil mostly agree that through his novels, short stories, and journalistic writings, Machado skillfully captured the ambiguities of Brazil's historical experience. From that standpoint, Machado's unconventional literary style was fit to produce an insightful and mordant portrait of Brazil's postcolonial society.

Nevertheless, for some non-Brazilian critics like Michael Wood and Abel Barros Baptista, Machado's achievements as a first-class writer are rooted beyond what Roberto Schwarz calls the "Brazilian ideological comedy" (48).² Consequently, Machado's literary excellence—his mastery and modernity, in Wood's words—should be considered in universal terms. These critics also believe that his works can hold great appeal even for international readers who may be unaware of the historical circumstances in and about which Machado wrote. Following this latter path, Earl E. Fitz's Machado de Assis and Narrative Theory is a thoughtful and thorough effort to demonstrate that the narrative revolution brought about by Machado in the latter decades of the nineteenth century should secure him the reputation of one of the most relevant writers in world literature.

Fitz fully recognizes that Machado is a sharp social commentator and that his novels render an insightful portrayal of the political, economic, and ideological landscape in late Imperial and early Republic Brazil. He sees how Machado brilliantly intertwines, sometimes in the same sentence, a metalinguistic comment with the "all-too-real issues of slavery, power, and violence" (98). Notwithstanding, Fitz's study centers on Machado's ability to reconceptualize mimesis and transcend conventional Realism through radical experiments with language. To Fitz, Machado's late narratives are "language novels," in that they both reflect and reflect on how semiotic systems work. Through a careful examination of Machado's writings produced in his final 28 years, between 1880 and 1908, Fitz makes a significant contribution to the field of Machadian studies. He concludes that the author was an avant garde modernist who developed a fine grasp of the volatile nature of language, anticipating Saussure's findings on the arbitrariness of linguistic signs. As a result, at both the microlevel of vocabulary and syntax and the macrolevel of storytelling, Machado's later novels provide, according to Fitz, an unprecedentedly subtle approach to literary representation—one that, by exploring the ever-shifting meaning of words and embracing language's fluidity, is better poised to capture the indeterminacy of both our inner and our social lives in their constant state of flux.

In his introduction, Fitz claims that Machado's sophisticated linguistic awareness is the main factor behind the sweeping changes he introduced to his narratives, starting with The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas (1880). Although it remains unclear why Machado's deep understanding of what language is and how it works surfaces at that specific moment in Machado's literary career, Fitz's study succeeds in revealing how the...